B365V3.6 - Take the skinheads bowling

At some point Friday night I was sitting around ye olde apartment and perhaps it was the thought of another weekend with nothing planned, perhaps it was a desire to break from my routine, but while watching something on Hulu (I think it was Legends of Tomorrow) I decided I wanted to go bowling.  So there I am, 9 pm on a Friday, checking out all of the local bowling alleys, figuring which nites/specials would work best in my social calendar.  There were a couple of places that offered cosmic bowling (which I love to do) until 1 am, but then it is a matter of getting home that late and public transportation isn't that reliable kids.  Finally I settled on Arsenal Lanes in Lawrenceville, which was doing a special Sunday nite, all you can bowl for $8 plus they have a DJ and they give away prizes.  I am familiar with how to get from my place there, it is the same bus I take on my breakfast forays into the Strip District and I know that bus runs way late, like until 2 am or some such nonsense.

Once I had ascertained my plans I posed them on Facebook, because you all need to know my every move.  Do try to deny it, it is information that makes your life more complete.  I had a few people comment on my plans, mostly friends that couldn't go because they too already had plans, but they wanted to go.  Not that I was looking for a gang of people to go with me, I have this flying solo shit down to a science.  My one friend Kat said she would like to go if she could get a baby sitter, which I have been down that road before, she is the one who stood me up for a hockey game and two subsequent dinner dates where she picked the day and time.  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me 6, 7, 8 times and I have to be a fucking moron.  Still I had a plan, so of course I had to continue with my Facebook annoyances by doing a countdown to when I was going bowling in Sunday, usually with a t minus and the amount of time left until 9pm Sunday night.

I get through my workday Saturday uneventfully and wake up Sunday morning, determined to have a fun filled day.  I started by doing some laundry and it felt like a great spring day outside, replete with all of the niceties of spring before spring has actually arrived.  I was even chased off of the bench outside the laundrymat briefly by a bee as I was sitting there reading.  I finished washing my clothes and walked back home and took a nap until about 3 pm or so.  I miss naps, they are so undervalued in the grand scheme of things.  I wake up again and decide to get ready to do the bowling thing.  I decide I better leave early, just to make sure I knew how to get to and fro without getting lost.  I catch a bus an hour earlier than when I should so I am running way early.  It is still nice outside, so as I am walking down Liberty Avenue I see that Crazy Mocha is still open, so I pop in and grab a mocha latte and sit outside at one of their sidewalk tables and use their wifi to play some MPQ to kill some time.  I get a message from my friend Debbie (she of the diving through the window the first time I was having sex fame) telling me to enjoy myself.  I think she saw Kat's message underneath my first post on Facebook regarding the bowling foray and assumed it was going to be a date type thing.  I had to correct the record on that and say I would be going solo, like I do most things.  sure enough I got a message from Kat soon after saying that she couldn't get a babysitter, but maybe we could do something this week.  (I will not hold my breath on that, simply because I like breathing.). I finish my coffee and walk to the bowling alley, which was about a mile from the coffee shop.  I go to the main entrance, it is locked but it turns out there is an entrance on the side of the building which is open, so I climb the stairs and am greeted at the door by a bouncer looking guy.  He asks to see ID (the 9-12 bowling is 21 and over only) so I pull out said ID and he asks if I have a reservation.  What the fuck, this is bowling, not fine dining.  I say no, he asks if there is anyone else in my group I say one other person may be coming, as Steve said at work on Saturday he may show up (I was not banking on it, but technically it was a possibility, I was told I could wait in the bar area and I would be called if a lane opened up.  About 9:30 I am given a lane all by myself (don't wanna be all by myself anymore).  Sorry the singing muse hit me there for a second.

Now I admittedly suck as a bowler, if I break 100 it is a good game for me and it has been nearly 20 years since I had been bowling.  My last attempt at bowling was a celebrity pro am event back when I first got into radio.  We were an all sports station at the time and there was a PBA event coming to Pittsburgh so I had to interview a professional bowler and then cut up the interview so we could run sound bites in our thrice hourly sports updates.  About a year later the PBA was back in town and I received a packet in the mail from them at work.  Not sure what they wanted from little ole me, I open it to find an invite to a celebrity pro am bowling event to take place prior to their tour event.  Of course I said yes, it was the first and possibly only time in my radio career I was mistaken for a celebrity.  Check that, that is untrue, once I was producing a high school basketball game back in the studio and the guys calling the game screwed up my name and called me Matt Damon, but that has nothing to do with my story, now does it?  So I get invited to this event, it is all kinds of cool for guys like me who never go to cool places, it is open bar all night long for the celebs and pros and each lane has one celebrity and one pro bowling on it as well as people who were invited to the event because they had connections.  By the end of the night we had the pro bowler on our lane turnt up as the kids say.  His last game of the night was a 156, which is still way better than I could do, but it was nice that I could cripple a pro bowler with alcohol.

Back to our bowling story from Sunday,  I get my lane and break the magical 100 barrier with my first game.  I end up bowling 5 games, getting better each time closing with a 133 game that saw me end with a strike, spare, spare, spare, strike run.  There was a return balls thing flashing on my electronic scorecard, despite it only being 11:30, which was a little disappointing but also fine as my arm was getting sore and my finger was throbbing.  I think I broke a bone in the middle finger of my right hand (i am right handed) as any time the last few weeks I am writing too much or carrying something too long it feels like a bone wants to come bursting through the middle of my palm.  Stopping was probably in my best interest, so I gathered up my stuff and left, catching a bus almost as soon as I made it back to Liberty Avenue.

Probably the worst part of the night was learning I could pee without hurting myself.  The restroom was almost right behind the lane I was on and after having coffee and a couple of beers at the bowling alley I had the urge to relieve myself.  I go into the restroom, the door opens to an area where it is either very dimly lit or the lightbulb was burnt out, but the door opens to a straightaway walk of about 10 feet before you make a left to the two urinals in there (which thankfully were lit) as well as an out of order toilet.  However the lack of light made me miss a step up about three feet inside the door, which I tripped over, slamming my right arm into a concrete wall.  So now I have a fucked up finger on my dominant hand and a bruised arm as well.

Needless to say I woke up all kinds of sore today, from my arm and hand to my legs from bowling 5 games and walking 2 plus miles getting to and from the alley.  It is enough to give me second thoughts before venturing out again.